"Camping?" repeated Tom.
"Yes. Just before that horrid shriek came out of the bushes, I thought I could smell burning wood; but I didn't have time to call your attention to it."
"Perhaps the mountain is on fire somewhere."
"Oh, I guess not. If that was the case, we'd smell the smoke now, wouldn't we?"
"That's so," said Tom, again. "Well, who's down there?"
"I'm sure I don't know; but I am satisfied that it is some one who has reasons for keeping himself hidden from the world. Now, what's to be done about it?"
"I don't see that we are obliged to do anything, unless we want to make ourselves a laughing stock for the whole country," replied Tom, who had had time to form some ideas of his own. "I couldn't be hired to tell Uncle Hallet of it, because he would ask, right away, 'Why didn't you go ahead and find out what it was that frightened you? You are pretty fellows to talk about living up there alone in the woods this winter, are you not?' And he'd never leave off poking fun at us. No doubt there is a party of guests from the hotel down there, and one of them yelled at us just for the fun of seeing us scramble up the bank. I only wish they might stay there long enough to play the same game on Silas Morgan when he comes after the money that is hidden in the cave."
The two friends spent half an hour or more in comparing notes after this fashion, but they did not succeed in wholly clearing up the mystery. They both agreed that it was a man, and not a savage beast of prey, that was hidden in the gulf; but who the man was, where he came from, and what he was doing there, were other and deeper questions, which probably never would be answered.
"I'll tell you what's a fact, Bob," said Tom, as he arose from the ground and led the way down a well-beaten cow-path that ran toward his uncle's barn, "We are not the only fellows in the world who like to play tricks upon others, and I'll venture to say that there is some one in the gorge at this minute who is laughing at us as heartily as we laughed at Silas Morgan when he found the letter that we put in his wood-pile. The guests at the hotel come up here to have fun, and they don't care much how they get it."
"Perhaps you're right," replied Bob, who nevertheless still held to the belief that there was some one in the gorge who was hiding there because he dared not show himself among his fellow-men. "But if I were sure of it, I should be very much ashamed of myself and you, too. However, I don't see how we are to get at the bottom of the matter, unless we go back and interview the party in the gulf; and I can't say that I am anxious to do that."